Pinckney Family

William Eustace Pinckney was born in Walterboro, South Carolina, to Eustace Bellinger Pinckney and Mary Martha Porcher in 1863. In the late 1860s, Eustace Pinckney moved his family to the Okatee River near Bluffton. As the only Catholics living in the area, the Pinckneys relied on visiting priests to perform religious rites. Sometime before 1916, the family built a simple wooden structure known as St. Mary's in the Woods as a place of worship. In 1922, the Pinckney family deeded the church to the Diocese of Charleston and Bishop William Russell dedicated it as the Church of St. Mary.

Know as Uncle Willie to those in the area, William Pinckney outlived four wives. He died in 1957.

William Eustace Pinckney and family are outdoors by the steps to a house. William Pinckney is standing and the other family members are sitting, circa 1930s.

William Eustace Pinckney is butchering meat for camp meals at Camp St. Mary in Okatie, South Carolina. He was known as Uncle Willie Pinckney, circa 1930s.